Active Labour Market Measures Research Articles

VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND LABOUR MARKET IN THE REPUBLIC OF KOSOVO

To analyse democratic and legal labour relations in the current conditions of economic and social development means, first and foremost, to highlight their essence and main features, as well as the development trends and future improvements of these relations.The year 2021, like 2020, has been characterized, among others, by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has produced various effects. As an effort to mitigate these effects, the Government of Kosovo has undertaken measures to support employment through the economic recovery package. Based on this context, the main and only purpose of the 1st Measure of economic recovery is the support of employment. Active employment measures have played a very important role in the integration of unemployed persons into the labour market. One of these measures with the largest number of beneficiaries is Vocational Training. Vocational training is a fundamental and very important process to get a job. In this sense, even the latest statistical data (2021) of the official authorities of Kosovo prove that the largest beneficiaries of active labour market measures are the persons who have undergone vocational training. The purpose of Vocational Training is to enable an increase or adoption of professional knowledge, namely to acquire additional knowledge,skills and abilitiesto perform efficient work, in order to increase the prospect of employment or retain their employment. Based on the international aspect, employment and the labour market are under the pressure of many factors, such as demographic, technological, economic and political ones; therefore, vocational training is considered as one of the mostsuccessful active labour market measures.

Building the Future from the Present: Imagining Post-Growth, Post-Productivist Ecosocial Policy

AbstractThe environment remains on the margins of social policy. Bringing degrowth literature into conversation with social policy debates about decommodification, we argue that a re-imagined decommodification remains central to addressing the social-ecological challenges we face and to forging a post-growth, post-productivist ecosocial welfare state. We explore the implications of this for re-imagining and mapping three core areas of an ecosocial welfare state revolving around the work/welfare/care nexus: the redistribution of time across work and care; repurposing of active labour market measures; and reorienting cash transfers and services. In each case we discuss what decommodified social policy in the service of a post-growth, post-productivist future might entail. Acknowledging challenges, we identify how instances of prefiguration of policy programmes and experiments across various countries offer concrete compass points for further transformation and a necessary paradigmatic shift.

The Role of Long-Term Unemployment in the Dynamics of the Labour Market

Mentoring, job search programmes, further training and support to facilitate daily living are the primary tools for public bodies to deal with long-term unemployment. In a report published in 2019, the European Commission assessed the progress made by Member States following the 2016 Council Recommendation on the integration of the long-term unemployed into the labour market. An important factor in examining the dynamics of the labour market is that long-term unemployment generally affects well-defined groups of people (such as the undereducated, the disabled, disadvantaged minorities) on the one hand and that, though the long-term unemployed make up half of the total number of unemployed persons in the Union, they account for less than a fifth of the participants in active labour market measures on the other hand. All this has a wide potential for development. The study examines in three parts the conceptual, practical, and regulatory contexts of long-term unemployment, taking into account the aspirations of the Union, the regulatory issues to be answered by national legislators, and, finally, the internal dynamics of the labour market.

Lithuanian Active Labour Market Policy in 2009–2020: a Social Investment Perspective

An active labour market policy is an integral part of social policy, ensuring support for the unemployed to search for a job through developing their skills. Thus, the active labour market policy is part of the social investment, focusing on investment in people’s knowledge. The heart of social investment is the design of policy-enhancing people to work, use their skills, create families and grow up children. The active labour market policy was analysed, focusing on the measures and their development in Lithuania. At the same time, the analysis from the social investment perspective was missing. Thus, this research aims to analyse Lithuania’s active labour market policy from the social investment perspective between 2009 and 2020. The choice of the period was determined by the time of the world financial crisis in 2009 and the Covid-19 pandemic crisis in 2020. The analysis of legal documents and Eurostat data for 2009-2018 was used to attain the formulated aim. Additionally, the meta-analysis of the Ministry of Social security and Labour’s Social Reports in 2009-2017 was used to analyse active labour market policy development. The research is based on methodology, which suggests classifying the active labour market measures into the strong and weak investments in human capital. A strong investment provides basic education or training, and a weak one creates new jobs, job subsidies, counselling, services for getting the job, job searching programmes, benefits, and taxes allowances. The analysis of the Lithuanian active labour market policy measures revealed that both strong and weak investments in human capital were balanced only during the crises. However, during the inter-crisis period, Lithuania’s active labour market policy measures were more focused on the weaker investment in human capital measures or the “job first” strategy. The strong investment in human capital was the lowest in Lithuania among other Baltic countries during the analysed period.

Evaluating The Impact of Subsidies in Reducing Unemployment in Romania

Having in mind the importance of effective Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs) to boost employment, this paper aims to provide an impact study on employment for three types of active labour market measures implemented in Romania. These measures address companies who employ graduates of education institutions or unemployed persons over 45 years old or with only 3 years left before retirement.

Odgovorne socijalne politike - uporedna analiza hrvatskih, švedskih i danskih mera aktivne politike zapošljavanja

In the past decades, the reduction of unemployment has been one of the crucial areas of social policies of the EU Member States because it is a key to economic growth and development. Taking into consideration the fast-changing labour market needs and the rapid transformation of labour relations, European public employment services are continuously creating new measures of active employment, with the aim to assist as many unemployed beneficiaries as possible and to swiftly re-integrate them into the labour markets. The main goal of active labour market programs is to make the matching process more efficient and to increase the number of successful matches of job vacancies and job seekers. Referring to examples of selected active employment measures in Croatia, Sweden and Denmark, this paper provides a comparative analysis of active labour market measures. The paper is divided into four sections. Section 1 provides an overview of measures to reduce unemployment; section 2 outlines the purpose of active labour market measures; section 3 provides a comparative analysis of five active labour market programs in Croatia, Denmark and Sweden, and a brief description of new activation strategies during Covid-19 in Croatia. The conclusion is that the creation of impactful social policies for employment substantially rests on conducting comprehensive analysis of the impact of active labour market measures from the perspective of new employment opportunities and the acquisition of new skills, as well as the analysis of the level of social inclusion of jobseekers.

Compensation or competition: Bias in immigrants' access to active labour market measures

AbstractWhether participation in active labour market programmes (ALMPs) pushes individuals back into employment depends on the programme's characteristics. On the basis of encompassing registry data that allow us to control for usually unobserved employability, we find evidence of a systematic access bias whereby jobcentre caseworkers in Switzerland assign unemployed persons to activation measures based on a competition logic that is mainly driven by an economic rationale and the jobcentre's performance evaluation. This practice seems problematic because it results in an overrepresentation of immigrants in measures with little efficacy rather than in measures that could compensate for employability disadvantages. Conversely, Swiss citizens are more likely to enter beneficial human‐capital‐intensive measures. It is plausible that this discrepancy in programme participation amplifies the general labour market disadvantages of immigrants.

How fair are unemployment benefits? The experience of East Asia

AbstractDespite an increasing emphasis on active labour market measures, unemployment benefits still remain a focal point of employment protection. This article takes the cases of four East Asian economies – China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Taiwan (China) –, which are often characterized as having welfare states with a strong developmental and productivist orientation, to investigate whether, as is sometimes argued, unemployment benefits are restrictive and exclusionary. In doing so, it examines the logic behind the design of unemployment benefits and argues that they are in fact progressive in design and fair when they pay out. Nonetheless, low effective coverage and low benefit rates weaken their redistribution and compensation objectives.

A theory based evaluation on possible measures which increase young NEETs employability

Abstract Using Prospective Evaluation Synthesis (PES) - a theory based evaluation method - and spatial distribution analysis of the young NEETs population in correlation with demographic and economic indicators at European, national, regional and county level, the research is looking for evidence on the factors influencing both the labour market (request and demand) and the success of active labour market policies (ALMPs) in increasing young NEETs employability and decreasing their number. Taking into account that Romania has the lower rate of registration of young NEETs to the Public Employment Services and that most of the active labour market measures are targeting only registered NEETs, the article reviews all Romanian policies designed to target young NEETs and finds they have limited impact. It also analyses the number of young NEETs, the regional disparities and county level disparities and it finds no correlation between the economic strength of the county and the presence of the NEETs. Considering the characteristics of young NEETs in Romania: their education level, their previous work experience (in average), their family responsibilities, the percentage of registered young NEETs and comparing Romanian policies with successful policies in other countries with similar profile of young NEETs the article concludes that in order to be effective, the tools planned and applied need to be highly customised and their success is still dependent on natural economic dynamics. However, further research is needed to determine the economic indicators with a positive effect over the young NEETs employability.

Effectiveness of Active Labor Market Tools in Conditional Cash Transfers Programs: Evidence for Argentina

Summary This paper examines the impact of the program Seguro de Capacitacion y Empleo (SCE) implemented to provide support in skills upgrading, job seeking, and job placement to eligible beneficiaries of the Argentinian conditional cash transfer program Plan Jefes. The SCE is an example of a growing trend observed in Latin America, where labor activation components have been increasingly included into cash transfers programs to support beneficiaries in finding more stable income opportunities. Despite this growing trend, not enough is known regarding the effectiveness of these components, especially on job quality. In this context, this paper sheds light on whether the provision of a comprehensive package of active labor market measures contributes to a successful labor market integration of cash transfers beneficiaries. Taking advantage of the panel structure of the Permanent Household Survey and exploiting the time variation in the assignment of the program as identification strategy, we apply difference-in-difference estimators to measure the impact on a number of labor market indicators. We find that the program affects positively the job quality of participants by increasing the probability of having a formal job and raising hourly wages. Moreover, the intervention is associated with a lower probability of having a low-paid job and working an excessive number of hours. These effects are, however, not homogeneous across all groups of participants. While the program is more successful among the younger beneficiaries, it does not contribute to an improvement in the labor market conditions of female beneficiaries, who in fact are the majority of SCE participants. Our results suggest that reducing dependency on monetary transfers through programs, such as the SCE, that are rich in activation components is beneficial for participants’ labor market trajectories and therefore, it constitutes a satisfactory exit strategy to more universal cash transfer programs.

Interventions to improve the labour market outcomes of youth: A systematic review of training, entrepreneurship promotion, employment services and subsidized employment interventions

Interventions to improve the labour market outcomes of youth: A systematic review of training, entrepreneurship promotion, employment services and subsidized employment interventions

Strategic management and management of personnel costs: employing young people in the Slovak Republic

This paper focuses on evaluating strategic management of the labor market through legislated active labor market measures introduced in the Slovak Republic to support youth employment. Based on the presented statistical data and managerial and legal analysis of the labor market in the Slovak Republic, with particular emphasis on the economic status of young people, two key parts of the adopted strategic document should provide better economic security for young adults. From the point of view of employers the initiatives are an attractive means for incorporating young adults into the economy, especially because this allows for increased active management of personnel costs that are directly related to compensatory incentives from the side of state agencies for employment of young people. This strategic management creates possibilities for employers to gain access to lower labor costs and to realize significant cost savings. Supporting data are presented graphically and at the same time the cost savings for employers are calculated. Overall, these two analyses demonstrate the practical effect of the new strategic measures on corporate management of personnel costs

Perceived Employability in Difficult Economic Times

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on current European employment policy, promoting the individual's responsibility for remaining employable. Within this supply-oriented framework, general political responsibilities of both increasing the demand for labour and facilitating the development of human capital through training and education opportunities are less emphasized than the individual's own responsibility to remain attractive for employers. In an analysis of perceived opportunities among European employees, we argue that the concept of ‘employment security’ can lift the individualized perspective on employability skills and attributes to a more structural and institutional perspective. To enhance individuals’ chances of finding a job, educational and lifelong learning policies and active labour market measures are believed to be important factors, besides general demand in the labour market. Through multi-level modelling, we analyse the significance of individual and contextual factors on employees’ perception of their chances in the labour market. The data used are from the European Social Survey (2010), including data from 21 countries. Our results indicate that employability cannot solely be regarded as an individual phenomenon relying on individual characteristics. We also need to focus on the institutional context enabling the individual to remain in employment in the existing mobile and risky labour market.

Subjective Well-Being and the Welfare State: Giving a Fish or Teaching to Fish?

To what extent can social policies influence how individuals experience spells of unemployment? Conventional hypotheses posit that more generous unemployment insurance schemes might increase the subjective well-being of the unemployed, but the empirical literature fails to convincingly confirm (or reject) this proposition. This paper contends that a theoretical preoccupation with the overall generosity of social policies obscures more than it reveals about the mechanisms through which the state can shape how individuals experience spells of unemployment. Social support regimes for the unemployed typically include some combination of active and passive labor market measures. Passive measures provide recipients with various forms of income support during unemployment spells, while active measures help individuals find new and better jobs by improving their overall employability. Several factors—the decreasing marginal utility of income, hedonic adaptation to material conditions, and the substantial non-pecuniary costs associated with unemployment—suggest that investments in active labor market measures will yield relatively greater gains in subjective well-being among the unemployed. These intuitions are confirmed in an analysis of data from three rounds of the European Social Survey (2002–2007) using a combination of fixed-effects and random-effects modeling techniques. While the overall generosity of public expenditures on labor market policy exerts no significant effect on the life satisfaction of the unemployed, the analysis supports the notion that active labor market measures are more effective in promoting life satisfaction among the unemployed than passive measures.

Subjective Well-Being and the Welfare State: Giving a Fish or Teaching to Fish?

To what extent can social policies influence how individuals experience spells of unemployment? Conventional hypotheses posit that more generous unemployment insurance schemes might increase the subjective well-being of the unemployed, but the empirical literature fails to convincingly confirm (or reject) this proposition. This paper contends that a theoretical preoccupation with the overall generosity of social policies obscures more than it reveals about the mechanisms through which the state can shape how individuals experience spells of unemployment. Social support regimes for the unemployed typically include some combination of active and passive labor market measures. Passive measures provide recipients with various forms of income support during unemployment spells, while active measures help individuals find new and better jobs by improving their overall employability. Several factors — the decreasing marginal utility of income, hedonic adaptation to material conditions, and the substantial non-pecuniary costs associated with unemployment — suggest that investments in active labor market measures will yield relatively greater gains in subjective well-being among the unemployed. These intuitions are confirmed in an analysis of data from three rounds of the European Social Survey (2002–2007) using a combination of fixed-effects and random-effects modeling techniques. While the overall generosity of public expenditures on labor market policy exerts no significant effect on the life satisfaction of the unemployed, the analysis supports the notion that active labor market measures are more effective in promoting life satisfaction among the unemployed than passive measures.

Work Organisation, Forms of Employee Learning and Labour Market Structure: Accounting for International Differences in Workplace Innovation

Workplace innovation has attracted increasing attention within Europe both amongst researchers and policy makers. This paper begins by drawing on the results of the 5th European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) to map different forms of work organisation for the EU-27 and Norway. It then examines at both the individual level and the group or national level the relationships between a measure of process innovation and the use of what are referred to as the ‘discretionary learning’ (DL) forms of work organisation, characterised by high levels of employee learning, problem-solving and discretion in work. The results point to a systemic relation at the level of national innovation systems between the frequency of process innovations and the frequency of the DL forms. This is explained in part by the way the DL forms provide employees with opportunities for the exploration of new knowledge that can result in new process innovations that diffuse beyond the firm’s boundaries. The paper then proceeds to address the issue of labour market policies for promoting the adoption of the DL forms. It presents evidence to show that the likelihood of the DL forms is higher in nations with more developed systems of ‘flexible security’ characterised by high levels of labour market mobility, unemployment protection and active labour market measures.

The Linkage between the Sources of Employment and Employee Turnover: the Role of Labour Exchange

Abstract According to the data of European globalization adjustment fund (EGF) the re-employment rate at the end of the EGF measures in Lithuanian construction sector constitutes 74%, furniture industry - 65%, wearing apparel sector - 62%. However, Ex-post evaluation of EGF showed that the re-employment rate 12 months later is characterized by considerable downward trends and reaches only 57% in construction sector, 63% in the furniture industry and 56% in wearing apparel sector. According to data of Lithuanian Labour Exchange circa 35% of jobseekers, who took part in vocational training and after that got a job, return back as unemployed persons to the Labour Exchange. As a result, in the companies the employee turnover is increasing, and that has a negative impact on performance of organizations. The paper discusses active Labour Market measures, provided by Labour Exchange, and the compatibility of these measures with the expectations of organizations on jobseekers.

The Nordic Labor Market and Migration

The large influx of migrants to Nordic countries in recent years is challenging the adoptability of Nordic labor market institutions while also adding to potential growth. This paper examines the trends, economic drivers, and labor market implications of migration to Nordic countries with a particular focus on economic migration as distinct from the recent large flows of asylum seekers. Our analysis finds that migration inflows to the Nordics are influenced by both cyclical and structural factors. Although migration helpfully dampens overheating pressures during periods of strong demand, and over the longer term will cushion the decline in labor supply from population aging, in the near-term unemployment can rise, especially among the young and lower-skilled. The analysis highlights the need to adapt Nordic labor market institutions in a manner that better facilitates the integration of migrants into employment. In particular, greater wage flexibility at the firm level and continued strong active labor market measures will help improve labor market outcomes among immigrants.

The Nordic Labor Market and Migration

The large influx of migrants to Nordic countries in recent years is challenging the adoptability of Nordic labor market institutions while also adding to potential growth. This paper examines the trends, economic drivers, and labor market implications of migration to Nordic countries with a particular focus on economic migration as distinct from the recent large flows of asylum seekers. Our analysis finds that migration inflows to the Nordics are influenced by both cyclical and structural factors. Although migration helpfully dampens overheating pressures during periods of strong demand, and over the longer term will cushion the decline in labor supply from population aging, in the near-term unemployment can rise, especially among the young and lower-skilled. The analysis highlights the need to adapt Nordic labor market institutions in a manner that better facilitates the integration of migrants into employment. In particular, greater wage flexibility at the firm level and continued strong active labor market measures will help improve labor market outcomes among immigrants.

From Beveridge to "Flexicurity": Old and Recent Labour Policies

The modern labour market policy of flexicurity has been adopted as a leitmotiv of the European employment strategy and the revised Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. This paper examines the two main influences behind the concept of flexicurity, namely the New Keynesian active labour market policies and the early ideas of William Beveridge. In particular, we contend that the flexicurity agenda originated from the New Keynesian employment policy agenda, which incorporates active measures for employment, aiming at both flexibility and security in the labour markets. These ideas and proposals can be traced back to William Beveridge’s work on labour market policy. Beveridge proposed a progressive and forward-looking labour policy, which combined flexibility and security together with active labour market measures, without disregarding the weaker labourers’ groups (e.g. casual workers). Thus, the paper shows that his policy proposition resembles the modern policy concept of flexicurity in such a degree that we can characterize Beveridge as the precursor of the flexicurity phenomenon.